Three churches, a nuns‘ convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and of a parish priest, a girls’ hostel, some Christian homes, were first vandalized and then set on fire by an angry crowd of around 2,000 people in the village of Sangla Hill, Nankana district in Punjab. At least 450 Christian families fled from the village and they have not yet returned for fear of further violence.Mgr Lawrence John Saldanha, Archbishop of Lahore Archdiocese and Chairman National Commission for Justice and Peace (see photo), told AsiaNews that “the attack seems to have been planned and organized as the attackers were brought to the site in buses and instigated to commit violence and arson. ..Religious leaders are at least partly responsible for provoking the violence: yesterday, in mosques, they called the faithful to gather outside the Jamia Madni Masjid, the central mosque, where they urged them to act against Christians. In fiery speeches, the leaders provoked the mob to set to fire each and every Christian place of worship.

The fires came a day after a local Muslim resident accused a Christian of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Quran. Dogar said the allegations were apparently leveled by people who lost money while gambling with the Christian man on Friday, but police had detained him and were investigating.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.He wasn't.Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal. ..He began turning up in the press and on broadcasts last spring with stories about military atrocities. Massey's primary thrust has been that Marines from his battalion - some of whom, he told a Minneapolis audience, were "psychopathic killers" - recklessly shot and killed Iraqi civilians, sometimes, he said, upon orders from their commanders. During a hearing in Canada, Massey said, "We deliberately gunned down people who were civilians."The Marine Corps investigated Massey's claims and said they were "unsubstantiated."From the beginning, Massey misled reporters.In early interviews, he told how he had lost his job at a furniture store because of his anti-war activities. But when asked about the incident in an interview Oct. 19 with the Post-Dispatch, Massey said he had quit his job but never had felt pressure to leave."I left on good terms," he said.He also backtracked from allegations he made in a May 2004 radio interview and elsewhere that he had seen a tractor-trailer filled with the bodies of Iraqi civilians when Marines entered an Iraqi military prison outside Baghdad. He said the Iraqis had been killed by American artillery.He told listeners that the scene was so bad "that the plasma from the body and skin was decomposing and literally oozing out of the crevices of the tractor-trailer bed."He repeated the story in the Post-Dispatch interview. But when told that the newspaper's photographs and eyewitness reports had identified the trailer contents as all men, mostly in uniform, Massey admitted that he had never seen the bodies.Instead, he said, he received his information from "intelligence reports." When asked if those reports were official documents, he answered, "No, that's what the other Marines told me."Changing storiesThe details of Massey's stories changed repeatedly.For example, he almost always told his audiences and interviewers of an event he said he'd never forget: Marines in his unit shooting four civilian Iraqis in red Kia automobile.In some accounts, Massey said Marines fired at the vehicle after it failed to stop at a checkpoint. In another version, he said the Marines stormed the car.Sometimes he said three of the men were killed immediately while the fourth was wounded and covered in blood; sometimes he said the fourth man was "miraculously unscathed."Sometimes he said the Marines left the three men on the side of the road to die without medical treatment while the fourth man exclaimed: "Why did you shoot my brother?" In other versions, he said the man made the statement as medical personnel were attempting to treat the three other men, or as the survivor sat near the car, or to Massey personally.There is no evidence that any of the versions occurred.

Borgmester taler åbent om de frankse optøjer

The Socialist Mayor of Noisy le Grand, speaking on France Culture radio yesterday morning claimed that in his city women were dragged from their cars by their hair and, for all intense and purposes, stoned by rampaging youths (il a employé le terme "quasi lapidées" en fwançais). He also reported that molotov cocktails were thrown into people's homes. He then asked the Army to intervene. The host, somewhat shocked that a Socialist mayor would use such language on a live State radio broadcast, stammered for a few seconds. The reports have since slipped into a French media memory hole.

On a State TV France5 talk show, an Algerian writer living in Paris expressed shock at the scenes coming in from the suburbs where jellaba clad big brothers step in to calm youths and negotiate with police. He stated that such images reminded him of the happenings in Islamist neighborhoods of Algiers circa late 80s and early 90s. These images, very common in the first days of the riots, have now vanished from French TV screens which now favor scenes involving disenfranchised youths who repeat endlessly that they are victims of unemployment and racism.

Frankrig: Medlemmerne fosser ind i Front National

In an interview with The Associated Press, Le Pen described the recent violence as "just the start" of conflicts caused by "massive immigration from countries of the Third World that is threatening not just France but the whole continent."

Le Pen said people with immigrant backgrounds who commit crimes should be stripped of their French nationality and sent "back to their country of origin."

Reminded that the vast majority of youths taking part in the arson and rioting are French, born in France to immigrant parents, he said: "What does that mean? Are they French because they have a French identity card?"

French nationality should be given only to those who ask for it and "who are worthy of it," he said. "Those who got nationality automatically, who don't consider themselves French and who even say publicly that they consider France their enemy should not be treated as French."Le Pen said he is convinced that what he described as a surge in support for his "zero immigration" platform would translate into votes at the ballot box for his National Front party.French voters "are saying to themselves 'Le Pen was right. We were told that Le Pen is an extremist because he said that immigration problems would lead to disorder. The facts have shown that he was right,'" he said.

"We are receiving thousands of new members, tens of thousands of e- mails. All of our offices are submerged, we don't know how to respond because we don't have the staff to reply to the wave of people who, 95 percent of them, salute and approve our positions," he added.

Le Pen gave no specifics on the number of new members, but the party's top official for new memberships said the figure was closer to 1,000 and that they were requests to join.Le Pen stunned many in France and shocked Europe by making it through to the second round of the last presidential elections in 2002. But he was soundly defeated in a runoff against President Jacques Chirac.

Kan venstrefløjsere være racister?

Well, if that Republican's name is Michael Steele and he's seeking to become Maryland's first black senator, the answer is: Just about everyone.

Let's start with Democratic officials such as Thomas V. ``Mike'' Miller Jr., the president of the state Senate. In 2001, Miller called Steele -- then head of the state Republican Party -- an ``Uncle Tom.'' Miller later apologized for the slur.

Then there are Democratic Party activists such as the ones who, when Steele was running for lieutenant governor in 2002, gave him a rude reception at a gubernatorial debate at a predominantly black university. The activists pelted Steele with Oreo cookies.

And then there are black liberals, including some who don't even live in Maryland but have made it their mission to try to torpedo Steele's Senate bid. They include a left-wing blogger in New York who posted a doctored photo of Steele depicting him as a minstrel in blackface. Amid criticism, the photo was pulled. What remains, however, is a photo of Steele with an equally offensive caption calling him ``Simple Sambo.''

And lastly, there are those liberals and Democratic operatives who, while claiming not to defend such blatantly vulgar and distasteful tactics, go on to, well, defend them.

Maryland State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden says Steele should accept whatever personal attacks come his way. She also says that black voters are likely to be Steele's harshest critics because, as she puts it, ``party trumps race.'' ..Steele is a threat to the social order of things because he challenges all that. Because he stands with the GOP, he gives black Americans something that Democrats don't want them to have: options. ..

Liberals want none of that. They're all for people making history -- as long those people are on their side of the aisle. They're all for minorities succeeding -- as long as they can claim credit for the success. And they're all for minorities becoming involved politically and voting -- as long as they continue to vote Democratic in perpetuity.

And if any of this doesn't go according to plan, then it's open season on anyone who gums up the works. Liberals think nothing of portraying blacks and other minorities who defect to the Republican Party as defective in some way.

A reader recently wrote that he was shocked that I, as a Mexican-American, would have anything nice to say about Republicans or the Bush administration because they had done so much harm to ``your people.'' What a condescending remark -- but what a useful example of liberal racism. Mention the words ``liberal'' and ''racism'' in one sentence in a classroom at one of the nation's most elite universities, and you'll get blank stares. For a lot of people on the left, the phrase is an oxymoron. They really don't seem to know what it means. How can liberals be racist? How can people dedicated to promoting tolerance be guilty of intolerance?